Automated generation of software applications using analysis of submitted content items

ABSTRACT

Based on an analysis of example content items, a proposed initial version of an application to be generated on behalf of a client is determined. At least a portion of a software program implementing the application is generated, and an indication of the software program is provided to the client. Based on input received from the client, additional operations associated with the program are initiated.

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/714,466, filed Sep. 25, 2017, which is hereby incorporated byreference herein its entirety.

BACKGROUND

In recent years, more and more software applications are being run usingsmart phones and other small-footprint devices, or in cloud-based datacenters, thereby reducing the need for application owners to maintainexpensive application execution environments at their own premises. Asapplication users get accustomed to easy-to-use applications, thepressure on business organizations and governmental entities to maketheir products and services accessible via such applications increase.Many non-business activities, such as social gatherings and the like,are also increasingly being organized and managed using phone-based orcloud-based applications.

Large well-financed organizations may be able to hire enough programmingstaff to develop and maintain the applications for various targetenvironments, or outsource the work of developing and maintaining theapplications. However, for a “long tail” of relatively smallorganizations or individuals, the costs associated with developingfull-fledged applications may sometimes be prohibitive. For any givenapplication, several different types of programming skills may berequired: for example, front-end or user interface design expertise forvarious types of devices expected to be used for the application,back-end or database skills, security-related expertise, networkingskills and so on may all be essential.

For many small organizations, making their unique service and/or productofferings accessible via easy-to-use applications may potentially leadto substantial increases in market size and/or revenue. Some smallbusiness owners may have ideas for several different types ofapplication and channels which they would like to try out for deliveringtheir products or services, but may lack programming skills needed todevelop the applications themselves. Orchestrating the creation anddeployment of such applications may present a non-trivial technical andlogistical challenge.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example system environment in which softwareapplications may be automatically generated based at least in part onprovided content item examples, without the need for the requester ofthe application to write program code, according to at least someembodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates an overview of a first example set of programmaticinteractions between a client and an automated application generationservice, according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 3 illustrates an overview of a second example set of programmaticinteractions between a client and an automated application generationservice, during which the client is granted access to a source codeversion of a generated application, according to at least someembodiments.

FIG. 4 illustrates example categories of content items which may besubmitted as examples to trigger the automated generation of anapplication, according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates aspects of populating entries of a data set used foran application, based at least in part on submitted content itemexamples, according to at least some embodiments.

FIG. 6 illustrates aspects of two simple applications which may begenerated based on respective sets of submitted example content items,data records which are recommended for label disambiguation, accordingto at least some embodiments.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example provider network environment in which anautomated application generation service may be implemented, accordingto at least some embodiments.

FIG. 8 illustrates example deployment and access options forautomatically-generated applications, according to at least someembodiments.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram illustrating aspects of operations that may beperformed to automatically generate software applications starting withthe analysis of submitted content items, according to at least someembodiments.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating an example computing device thatmay be used in at least some embodiments.

While embodiments are described herein by way of example for severalembodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art willrecognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments ordrawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings anddetailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments tothe particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is tocover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within thespirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings usedherein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be usedto limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughoutthis application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e.,meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e.,meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and“includes” mean including, but not limited to. When used in the claims,the term “or” is used as an inclusive or and not as an exclusive or. Forexample, the phrase “at least one of x, y, or z” means any one of x, y,and z, as well as any combination thereof.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments of methods and apparatus for automated generationand deployment of software applications based at least partly on theanalysis of content items indicated by an application requester aredescribed. In at least some embodiments, one or more of the techniquesdescribed herein may be implemented at a network-accessible service,which may be referred to as an automated application generation service(AAGS) or an application builder service. A customer or client of such aservice, such as a businessperson who may not necessarily be skilled inat least some aspects of software development, but who does have somehigh-level goals about a potentially useful software application, mayutilize the service to generate and/or refine the desired applicationwithout writing any software code in various embodiments. The client maybegin the process of generating a particular application associated witha problem domain of interest by submitting one or more examples ofcontent items (e.g., photographs, emails, or the like) which may (fromthe perspective of the client) provide hints or suggestions regardingthe desired application to the service. For example, if a client is ahair salon owner or manager who wants to obtain an applicationassociated with scheduling of hair styling appointments, a set of photosof hair styles, and/or of customers having their hair styled or cut inthe salon, together with some calendar entries for hair-relatedappointments, may be submitted to the service. Any of a number ofeasy-to-use interfaces may be employed to submit the content—forexample, interfaces similar to those used for sharing photographs takenon a smart phone with friends may be used, as discussed below in furtherdetail. In at least some embodiments, the individual example contentitems need not necessarily be annotated in any way by the client—e.g.,in the case of photographs submitted to the AAGS, the photographs may beun-enhanced or unlabeled. In other embodiments, some subset or all ofthe example content items submitted to an AAGS may be annotated ormodified prior to submission.

Upon receiving the example content items, components of the service mayanalyze the content, and using any of various techniques described belowsuch as template matching and/or machine learning, identify respectiveproposed initial versions of one or more candidate applications whichappear to match the client's needs. A given proposed initial version mayinclude one or more potential user interactions—e.g., a user of a hairsalon scheduling application may be expected to allow clients to viewavailable appointment slots, select a particular hair treatment and soon. An approximate visual representation of at least some suchinteractions may be provided by the service for one or more of thecandidate applications—e.g., in the form of screenshots of a smart-phoneapp interface or a web-based interface which may potentially be used forthe application.

At this stage, in some embodiments, customized software code for thetargeted or desired application may not have been generated at theservice, or only a minimal amount need to prepare the approximate visualrepresentation may have been produced. Instead, for example, servicecomponents may utilize existing representations of user interactions ofapplication templates or skeletons (or modify such pre-existingartifacts slightly based on the supplied example content items) invarious embodiments, with the objective of obtaining an approval of oneof the proposals from the client before generating a substantial amountof custom code. In the hair salon scheduling application scenario, forexample, thumbnails generated from client-supplied example photographsmay be used in a phase of a proposed application in which a particularhair-style is to be selected by a hair salon customer. In effect, theservice may be attempting to obtain an answer from the client to aquestion similar to “does this sequence of interactions look (at leastapproximately) like the application you want?” in some embodiments.Visual representations of several options corresponding to differentcandidate applications may be presented to the client in someembodiments, and the client may provide feedback programmatically forthe various options until eventually a set of interactions of aparticular application is approved by the client. In some cases, therepresentations presented to the client for approval may comprise atleast some non-visual elements—e.g., audio elements may be included insome application representations. (There is, of course, also thepossibility that none of the choices presented by the service isacceptable to the client. In one embodiment, in such a scenario, theclient may be provided access to a larger set of existing templateapplications and/or a source code development environment, and requestedto either select one of the templates to pursue furtherservice-performed refinements, or to provide at least an initial set ofsource code for the targeted application.)

After one of the proposed initial versions is approved by the clientprogrammatically based on the presented visual representations, at leasta portion of a software program corresponding to an implementation ofthe approved application may be generated (or retrieved from an existinglibrary of programs) at the automated application generation service(AAGS) in various embodiments. In at least some embodiments, the AAGS orapplication builder service may maintain a growing repository ofapplication templates, with which a variety of client-specific data setsmay be programmatically associated for customization as needed. If theinitial requirements for an application, as deduced using the contentitems and the client's approval of the visual representation, can be metusing one of the templates, very little or no additional code may beneeded at this stage of the automated application generation process invarious embodiments. In other cases, the template versions of theprograms may have to be modified at least slightly before beingpresented to the client, or a new program may have to be generated. Anindication of the program (e.g., the name of the program, instructionson how to try the program out it one or more execution environments,and/or a pointer to a client-specific copy of the source code) may beprovided to the client in some embodiments.

Depending on the client's goals and the client's evaluation of theinitial version of the software program provided by the AAGS, a numberof different follow-on operations may be initiated at the service basedon requests sent by the client in various embodiments. It may be thecase, for example, that the client is satisfied by the first version ofthe program, and wants to use it as is; in such a scenario, the clientmay for example either start using the application from an executionplatform selected at the service, or request the deployment of theapplication to a different execution environment (such as a particularsmart phone or server selected by the client, or a network-accessiblecomputing service approved by the client). A variety of deploymentdestination environments may be available in different embodiments, asdiscussed below in further detail. Alternatively, in at least someembodiments the client may wish to refine the initial version of theprogram, e.g., by adding to the functionality, modifying the userinterface, and so on, in which case the client could submit requests tothe service for such changes, and an iterative process ofservice-generated refinements could be initiated. In some embodiments,the client may obtain access to the source code and perform at leastsome of the refinement-related changes (e.g., using software developmentexpertise of the client, or of staff hired by the client). A refinedversion generated by the client may optionally be submitted to the AAGSfor deployment at selected destinations in some embodiments. In at leastone embodiment, for those clients who may desire to modify the source atany stage of the refinement process, a set of software tools such as anintegrated development environment (IDE), additional debugging tools,test resources and the like may be provided by the AAGS. In someembodiments, machine learning algorithms (such as generative neuralnetwork based algorithms) may be used to refine applications—e.g., togenerate at least a portion of the software for a refined version of anapplication. In various embodiments, the facilities and interfacesprovided by the AAGS may enable clients to obtain access to high-qualityapplications based largely on intuitive interactions with the service,without a requirement for acquiring proficiency in software development.

Any combination of example content items of a wide variety of contentcategories may be supplied or indicated to the AAGS to initiate theprocess of generating an application, and/or during the applicationrefinement process in different embodiments. For example, in someembodiments, photographs, videos, e-mails, contacts database entries,audio recordings, presentations, documents, calendar entries and thelike may be provided. In at least some embodiments, pointers to datasources, such as uniform resource identifiers (URIs) of content on theInternet or within a storage service may be provided, e.g., in additionto or instead of the actual content examples.

When submitted content which may potentially be used to trigger thegeneration of an application is received at the AAGS from a client, inat least some embodiments the AAGS may transmit a confirmation requestmessage to the client, in effect asking the equivalent of the question“do you want this content to be used to generate an application?”Additional actions at the AAGS, such as the identification of a proposedinitial version of an application, may be dependent on whether theclient confirms that the supplied content is to be used to generate theapplication. In some embodiments, clients need not submit all thecontent examples that are to be used at the same time—e.g., clients maysubmit content items in batches, informing the service programmaticallywhen all the examples have been submitted.

In various embodiments, after the example content items are received,the AAGS may extract metadata from the content and populate at leastsome entries of a data set to be used for the desired application usingthe metadata. The data set may represent a concrete or materializedinstantiation of a data model (selected by the AAGS) for the targetedapplication in some embodiments. For example, metadata about the datesat which various submitted photographs were taken may be used topopulate a database associated with scheduling events, tags or labelsassociated with submitted photographs may be used to populaterelationship entries in the data set, and so on. The extracted metadatamay be used to select (and/or arrange in an estimated order ofpreference) the candidate applications whose representations are to bepresented to the client for approval in some embodiments. As mentionedabove, the content itself may be used to populate portions of the visualinteraction representations provided to the client in some embodiments.After an initial proposal prepared at the service is approved, the dataset may have to be more fully populated in order for the programcorresponding to the approved application to work in some embodiments.At least in the initial stages of the interactions with the client, insome embodiments placeholder or dummy values may be generated to fillout one or more entries in the data set to enable the program tofunction. That is, the data set underlying the application may bepopulated based on a combination of information supplied by the client(e.g., in the form of metadata of the example content items, or portionsof the content itself) and placeholder values selected at the service inat least some embodiments.

The AAGS may support deployment of the generated applications to avariety of destination types, and support a variety of access modes tothe application, in different embodiments. For example, in someembodiments, the application may be deployed to small-footprint devicessuch as smart phones, to virtual or physical servers at a providernetwork or cloud environment, to non-provider-network servers selectedby the client (e.g., servers at client-owned premises), and so on. In atleast some embodiments, an application generated using the AAGS may beadded to the inventory of an online marketplace or repository ofdownloadable applications. In some embodiments, respective versions of agiven generated application may be created for several differentexecution environments (e.g., different server and phone operatingsystems) and deployed as requested by the client.

Example System Environment

FIG. 1 illustrates an example system environment in which softwareapplications may be automatically generated based at least in part onprovided content item examples, without the need for the requester ofthe application to write program code, according to at least someembodiments. As shown, system 100 may comprise various resources andcomponents of an automated application generation service (AAGS) 120,including for example one or more application generation coordinators130, machine learning resources 150, a data store comprising applicationdata models and instantiated datasets 150 and an application templatelibrary 102. The application generation coordinators 130, which may beimplemented at one or more computing devices, may orchestrate theprocess of creating an application on behalf of AAGS clients 180,without requiring the clients to submit application source code. In atleast some embodiments, clients 180 may, if they desire to do so, writesome portions of the source code or modify service-generated source codeto refine the applications generated by the AAGS.

The AAGs may implement a set of programmatic interfaces 177 in thedepicted embodiment—e.g., a set of application programming interfaces, aweb-based console, a graphical user interface and/or command line tools.In some embodiments, other programmatic interfaces such as integrateddevelopment environments (IDEs) may also be implemented for thoseclients who wish to modify or write source code. A subset of theprogrammatic interfaces may be used by clients to submit example contentitems 161 (such as photos, calendar entries and the like) to initiatethe creation of applications in various embodiments. In at least someembodiments, the process of providing at least some categories ofcontent items 161 to the AAGS 120 may be simplified by incorporatingcontent submission capabilities into commonly-used interfaces of smartphones and other frequently used devices. For example, a client's smartphone camera application or photo management application may allow thephone's owner to send/share photos or videos to various destinations,and in some embodiments the AAGS may be added as one possibledestination for a client 180 (after obtaining the client's “opt-in”consent), making it trivial for a client to submit selected photoswithout having to use a new, less familiar interface or explicitlyinvoke the AAGS's APIs from some other program. Similar opt-inextensions enabling easy transfers of content to the AAGS may beincorporated within file-sharing or file system applications, calendarapplications, contacts applications, e-mail applications and so on forvarious types of devices, including for example smart phones, tabletcomputing devices, wearable computing devices (such as smart watches,augmented reality devices or virtual reality devices), voice-drivenpersonal assistant devices, laptops, deskside or desktop computersystems and the like. In at least some embodiments, the example contentitems 161 may be submitted in an un-modified form (relative to when theitems were created)—e.g. no special annotations, labels or additionalguidance regarding how the items are to be used in the desiredapplication may be required. In other embodiments, at least some of theexample content items may be annotated, enhanced or modified, e.g., tohelp the AAGS interpret the significance or intended use of the itemswith respect to the application. It at least some embodiments, the setof example content items submitted to the AAGS 120 by a client may notinclude executable program code—instead, the content items may comprisenon-executable data objects (such as image files, contacts entries,calendar entries and the like as mentioned earlier) that can be examinedor analyzed using executable programs run by components of the AAGS 120.

Upon receiving a set of example application-related content items 161, acontent metadata extractor component 132 of the AAGS 120 may analyze thecontent items. Metadata such as the types or categories of the items(e.g., whether a given item is an image, a video, a text document or thelike), associated dates, times, locations and the like may be extractedfrom the content items in some embodiments, and provided to an initialapplication selector 134 in the depicted embodiment. In someembodiments, the initial application selector 134 may utilize machinelearning resources 150 to identify one or more applications that appearto be potential matches for the client. For example, one or more machinelearning models (e.g., deep learning models employing neural networks)may be trained in some embodiments to consume content items and/orassociated metadata as input, and generate respective scores for one ormore pre-existing template applications of library 102 (such asapplications 112A associated with problem domain PD1, or applications112B associated with problem domain PD2) indicating how well thetemplate applications match inferred objectives or goals of the targetapplication. Some subset of applications 112 with high matching scoresmay be selected as candidates for further interactions with the clientin such embodiments. In some embodiments, machine learning models may betrained to generate the code for new candidate applications based on theinput content items, e.g., instead of assigning scores to pre-existingapplications. In other embodiments, the initial application selector mayitself examine a pre-existing collection of template applications inlibrary 102 and select one or more matching applications, e.g., insteadof or in addition to utilizing machine learning resources 150.

Having identified or generated one or more initial candidateapplications that may meet the client's target application requirements,the AAGS 120 may provide a visual representation 162 of various userinteractions within the candidate application(s) to AAGS clients 180 inthe depicted embodiment. The visual representations, which may forexample comprise the equivalent of a set of screenshots showing whatusers of the proposed application may see and do as they interact withthe proposed application, may be provided to obtain approval from theclient for further development of the application in variousembodiments. In at least some embodiments, where possible andappropriate, the client's example content items 161 (or metadataextracted from the content items) may be incorporated within the visualrepresentations—e.g., an example photograph or e-mail address entryprovided by the client may be shown in the visual representation.

If the first proposed application is not approved by the client in thedepicted embodiment, representations of one or more other applicationsmay be presented to the client, e.g., based on feedback received fromthe client and/or based on the matching scores generated by the AAGS.Assuming that one of the presented applications is eventually approved,and that the client 180 indicates that initial version of theapplication needs improvement, a process of iteratively refining theapplication may be begun in various embodiments. An initial set ofsource code may be identified or generated as the “starter” or unrefinedversion of the application in some embodiments, to which modificationsare applied based on client feedback. Note that at least in someembodiments, source code need not necessarily be generated or stored onbehalf of the client until the client approves the representation of theinitial version of the application—source code-related operations maylargely or wholly be deferred until after the approval in suchembodiments. In other embodiments, the initial information provided tothe client may include a pointer to source code for one or moreapplications.

An application refinement manager 136 may be responsible forinterpreting the client's feedback, e.g., using machine learningresources 150 or other analytic tools, and generating modifications tothe current version of the source code based on the interpretations.Multiple iterations of feedback-based refinement may be performed insome embodiments, until eventually an acceptable iteratively-refinedapplication 163 is generated. In at least some embodiments, the client180 may submit requests via programmatic interfaces 177 to deploy therefined application 163 to one or more deployment destinations 170. Suchrequests may be processed and implemented by an application deploymentmanager 138 in various embodiments. A number of different deploymentdestination types 170 may be selected by the client 180 in someembodiments, such as one or more virtual or physical servers of aprovider network or cloud environment, a set of non-cloud devicesspecified by the client, and so on as discussed below. In addition tothe deployment destinations, in some embodiments clients may also beable to specify access modes for their deployed applications—e.g.,indicating the set of users (or the required roles, capabilities,permissions etc. of users) who are to be allowed to use the application.In various embodiments, during one or more stages of iterativerefinement, a client may make modifications to the application sourcecode if desired, and submit the modified source code (or an executableversion of the modified source code) to the AAGS. That is, an indicationof the current version (or earlier versions) of the source code (e.g., alocation within a source code repository) may be provided to a client180 by the AAGS upon request in various embodiments.

It is noted that while a network-accessible service such as an AAGS 120may be employed in some embodiments to generate applications on behalfof clients starting with application contextual information in the formof example content items, similar techniques may be employed using astandalone tool in other embodiments. For example, in one embodiment anapplication builder tool capable of generating applications in a similarmanner to that described above may be implemented using one or morecomputing devices which are not necessarily part of a network-accessibleservice, and not necessarily affiliated with a network-accessibleservice.

Example Programmatic Interactions

FIG. 2 illustrates an overview of a first example set of programmaticinteractions between a client and an automated application generationservice (AAGS), according to at least some embodiments. An AAGS 210 mayimplement one or more programmatic interfaces 277 which may be used forsuch interactions in the depicted embodiment. A client 202 of the AAGS210 may initially register with the AAGS and obtain the credentialsnecessary to use the programmatic interfaces 277 in some embodiments. Aspart of a setup procedure, in some embodiments one or more applications(e.g., for content submission, viewing, trying out and providingfeedback of application versions) may be installed on client-owned orclient-managed devices. In at least one embodiment, existingapplications being used by the client such as a photo-sharingapplication or a document sharing application may be modified to enablestreamlined communication with the AAGS 210. These types of preliminarysetup-related interactions are not shown in FIG. 2 (or in FIG. 3, whichalso illustrates programmatic interactions between a client and anAAGS).

A set of interactions associated with generating and deploying anapplication may be initiated by the client submitting a group ofapplication-related content items 220 to the service in the depictedembodiment. The AAGS 210 may transmit an application requestconfirmation query 222 in response to receiving the items, in effectrequesting a response to a question similar to “Do you want anapplication using that type of content to be built automatically?” insome embodiments. Such a confirmation step may be helpful in avoidingthe wastage of AAGS resources—e.g., it may sometimes be the case thatcontent is submitted inadvertently, or an incomplete set of contentexamples is submitted, in which case further processing steps at theAAGS may not be required immediately. Such a conformation may also behelpful in some cases in disambiguating the interpretation of a givenexample content item. For example, the client could submit a photographof a pet playing with a toy, and the AAGS may be able to determine that(a) the submission is a photograph (b) the photograph contains a pet and(c) the photograph contains a toy. As such, several object categoriesthat could potentially correspond to operations to be performed in atargeted application may be identified in this example scenario (e.g.,pets, toys, or photographs). In some embodiments the AAGS may attempt toconfirm which of the categories (or combination of categories) are mostrelevant to the application targeted by the client.

If the client 202 responds with a confirmation 224 in the depictedembodiment, the AAGS may begin analyzing the set of example contentitems that was submitted. The content types of the items may bedetermined, and metadata transmitted along with the content items (oraccessible from other sources such as web searched pertaining to theitems) may be extracted in various embodiments. Based at least in parton an analysis of the content items and associated metadata, at leastone proposed application which may meet the client's requirements may beidentified (e.g., from a set of templates) or generated in the depictedembodiment. Other factors may also or instead be used to identifypotential applications in some embodiments—e.g., information about theidentity of the requesting client may be used, or other information(such as applications generated earlier on behalf of the same client,records which the client has shared with the AAGS regarding applicationsor devices that the client uses frequently, etc.) pertaining to theclient's preferences may be used in various embodiments.

One or more visual representations 226 of typical user interactions of arough proposed application identified by the AAGS may be transmitted tothe client based on the analysis of the content and/or other factors inthe depicted embodiment. The example content supplied by the client maybe used in the visual representation in some embodiments to the extentpossible, e.g., to indicate the manner in which the example content'spurposes with respect to the targeted application have been interpretedby the AAGS. The client may eventually approve a proposed roughapplication, as indicated by interaction 228 in the depicted embodiment.In some cases, the approval may involve several iterations ofinteractions, in some of which the client indicates that a particularproposal is not acceptable (and/or why the proposal is not acceptable).In one embodiment, the AAGS may generate a list of applications orderedfrom high to low matching scores with respect to the client'santicipated needs, and provide respective representations of several ofthe applications of the list at a time, enabling the client to selectamong (or rank) the proposals.

After the approval 228 is obtained, an indication of an initialapplication implementation 230 may be provided to the clientprogrammatically in various embodiments—e.g., a link to an executableversion of the application may be provided, and/or other instructions asto how to execute or view the application may be provided. In someembodiments, the AAGS may create a client-specific initial source codeversion of the proposed application program—e.g., by copying/branchingthe source code from an existing repository of applications, or bygenerating at least a portion of the source code.

In response to the indication of the initial version of the application,the client 202 may provide feedback 232 (or approval 238) to the AAGS inthe depicted embodiment. A number of different types of artifacts orsubjective appraisals may be provided by the client as part of thefeedback in different embodiments.

In one scenario, the client may find the initial version of theapplication acceptable as a final version, and the feedback may comprisean approval message 238 with an optional deployment request indicatingthe execution platforms at which the application should be deployed. Inresponse to such a deployment directive, in various embodiments the AAGSmay in some cases take one or more steps necessary to package theapplication for deployment, initiate the deployment to the specifieddestinations, and confirm that the requested deployment has succeeded bysending a deployment complete message 240 to the client.

In alternative scenarios, the client may for example try out or examinethe application as presented and determine that further refinement isneeded in the depicted embodiment. The client may then provideadditional information which may be helpful for the refinement: e.g.,details regarding the preferred look and feel of the application or thefunctionality of the application may be provided, additional examples ofcontent or metadata regarding the application may be provided, and soon. In at least some embodiments, information about the configuration ofnotifications the targeted application should generate (e.g., under whatcircumstances a user should be notified by the application, what thecontents of the notifications should be, and/or what the notificationmechanism should be) may be provided by the client, and software code togenerate the notifications may be inserted into the application by theAAGS. It is noted that in various embodiments, the feedback artifactsand assessments provided by the client may not require any programmingon the part of the client—e.g., options regarding configuration ofpossible notification mechanisms may be provided in a drop-down menu,and the client may pick one or more of the provided options. Similarly,subjective assessments regarding the current acceptability level ofvarious aspects of the application may be obtained using scores on ascale of 1 to 10, for example, without requiring any code to be writtenby the client.

As more details or subjective assessments are received at the AAGS,iteratively-refined implementations 234 of the application may begenerated and indications of the improved versions may be provided tothe client in the depicted embodiment. In some cases, the AAGS maysubmit queries for additional information to help guide the refinementchanges. In various embodiments, the source code of the application maybe modified at the service during the refinement iterations (somescenarios in which clients may participate in source code manipulationor creation are illustrated in FIG. 4 and discussed in further detailbelow). Eventually, an acceptable version of the applicationimplementation may be attained, and an approval message 238 may be sentto the AAGS by the client. The approved version of the application maybe stored in a repository by the AAGS in various embodiments. If/whenthe client wishes to deploy the application, a deployment request may besubmitted programmatically, e.g., providing details of the destinations.In response to such a deployment request, the AAGS 210 may package theapplication appropriately and transmit it to the requested destinationsin various embodiments, indicating to the client that the deployment iscomplete via a message 240.

It is noted that the kinds of programmatic interactions indicated inFIG. 2 may represent only a subset of the supported programmaticinteraction types of an AAGS 210 in various embodiments. For example,additional types of interactions may be supported for reporting defects,having defects fixed by the service, adding features to applications,and so on in various embodiments. In at least some embodiments, some orall of these interactions may also be handled using easy-to-useinterfaces which do not require source code to be written by the client,and which do not require clients to have expertise in softwaredevelopment/maintenance processes. In at least one embodiment, not allthe interactions between a client and an AAGS may involve the use of thesame device at the client's end—e.g., photos and contact information maybe submitted to the AAGS 210 via the client's smart phone, whileAAGS-provided representations of the application may be viewed by theclient using a desktop or laptop with a larger display than the phone,source code modifications may be performed by the client using alaptop/desktop, and so on. The client 202 may switch between differentdevices for interacting with the AAGS 210 as and when desired in suchembodiments. In some embodiments, the AAGS may retain sessioninformation (e.g., indicating state information for the most recentinteractions with a client 202), so that a session may be resumed fromany of various client devices.

In some cases, clients of an AAGS (or employees/consultants of clients)may modify source code of an application generated by the AAGS. FIG. 3illustrates an overview of a second example set of programmaticinteractions between a client and an automated application generationservice, during which the client is granted access to a source codeversion of a generated application, according to at least someembodiments. As in the example scenarios shown in FIG. 2, the process ofautomated creation of a desired application may be initiated by a client302 by sending a group of one or more content items 320 (such as photossent from a smart phone) to an AAGS 310 using programmatic interfaces377.

An initial set of interactions similar to those illustrated in elements222, 224, 226 and 228 of FIG. 2 may occur in response to the submittedcontent, during which approval of an initial proposed application isobtained from the client using visual representations of userinteractions. (This initial set of interactions is not replicated onFIG. 3.) After the approval of the application is obtained, anindication of an AAGS-generated application implementation 330 (eitherthe initial version or some refined version) may at some stage beprovided to the client 302 in the embodiment depicted in FIG. 3. In atleast some embodiments, access to the source code of the application maynot be provided to clients by default.

The client 302 may submit a source code access request 332 correspondingto some specified version of the application (e.g., the most recentversion) in some embodiments. In response, the AAGS 310 may providesource code access information 334—e.g., the credentials to access aportion of a source code repository containing the specified version ofthe code. In at least some embodiments, the AAGS 310 may also provideaccess to source code processing tools at the request of theclient—e.g., one or more IDEs, debuggers, test frameworks and the likemay be supported.

The client may modify the source code as desired and, in turn, providean indication of a client-refined application version 338 in thedepicted embodiment. If the client-refined application is the finalversion (e.g., if the client does not want any additionalservice-performed refinements), an optional deployment request may betransmitted as well. The AAGS may package and deploy the application asrequested, and transmit a deployment completed message 340 back to theclient.

In at least some embodiments, once the final version of the applicationis generated and approved, a client may not necessarily want the AAGS tohandle deployment or any further actions. Instead, for example, theclient may obtain access to the application (the source code versionand/or one or more executable versions for respective types of executionplatforms) if such access has not already been provided, and perform anyadditional follow-up actions needed. In some embodiments, at the requestof a client, the AAGS may generate multiple versions of the sameapplication compatible with, and/or optimized for, different operatingenvironments (e.g., different operating systems, virtualizationenvironments and so on) or different locales/geographies.

Submitted Content Categories

FIG. 4 illustrates example categories of content items which may besubmitted as examples to trigger the automated generation of anapplication, according to at least some embodiments. As shown, thecategories of submitted content items may include photographs or videos412, calendar entries 414, contact information 416 (e.g., names, emailaddresses and the like), e-mails 418, social media items 420 (such asstatus updates) in at least some embodiments. Audio items 422 (such assongs, other forms of music, recordings of discussions or speeches),documents 424 such as presentations, technical papers and the like,rough drawings or sketches 426 (e.g., sketched on a tablet device),and/or pointers 428 to network-accessible content (e.g., URIs of videosor the like which may be hard to transmit in full) may be submitted tothe AAGS in some embodiments. For each of the supported contentcategories, the AAGS may comprise components capable of recognizing thecategories and identifying a set of metadata slots pertaining to thecategory. For example, with respect to photographs, the metadata slotsmay include timestamps at which the photographs were taken, geographicallocation, primary subject matter, properties (e.g., approximate age,etc.) of individuals/items photographed, and so on. The metadataincluded with the content items may be extracted and used to fill atleast some of these slots in various embodiments. Analytics algorithms,such as image recognition and other machine learning algorithms, may beused to fill out other slots in some embodiments. The clients may bequeried to determine contents of some slots in at least one embodiment.

In at least one embodiment, the AAGS may support one or moretransformation algorithms associated with the submission of examplecontent items. For example, a filter for removing or obfuscatingpotentially sensitive information may be provided in some embodiments.Such a filter, if activated by a client or by default, may try to detectwhether the content items being submitted may comprise financial orother private information (e.g., bank information, home addresses,mobile phone numbers, or the like) which a client may not necessarilywish to expose. If such sensitive items are detected, the client may insome embodiments be asked to confirm whether the information isacceptable without modification for further analysis by the AAGS,whether the information should be obfuscated, or whether the informationshould be removed from the set of information on which furtherprocessing is to be initiated. In at least some embodiments, privacysettings controlled by the clients may be used to manage sensitiveinformation—e.g., the AAGS may enable clients to select or define thekinds of information to be considered sensitive, the actions to be takenif/when such information is detected, and so on.

Application Data Set Population

In various embodiments, an application generated with the help of anAAGS may have an associated underlying data model, and a data setrepresenting a concrete instance of the data model may have to begenerated and maintained for the application. FIG. 5 illustrates aspectsof populating entries of a data set used for an application, based atleast in part on submitted content item examples, according to at leastsome embodiments. In the depicted embodiment, metadata 512 may beextracted from submitted example content items related to a targetapplication. The kinds of metadata extracted may differ from onesubmitted item to another—e.g., different metadata may be extracted froman image than from an email or a calendar entry. Examples of thecontent-type dependent metadata 512 may include, among others, dates,times, addresses/locations (e.g., Global Positioning System or GPScoordinates), the types of objects recognized in photos, eventsequences, etc. Using the extracted metadata, a potential targetapplication 514 and an associated data model 516 for which a concreteinstantiation or materialized data set is to be populated may beidentified. In some embodiments, as mentioned earlier, the potentialtarget application may be identified by matching at least a portion ofthe extracted metadata with respective records of application metadatarequirements for some number of template applications stored at theAAGS. For example, for each template application, the AAGS may store adescription record indicating the kinds of content or objects that aremanipulated in the template application, the sequence in which theobjects are manipulated, the kinds of transformations which result fromthe manipulations, and/or the corresponding data model for objectsaccessed/manipulated in the application. After metadata for anewly-submitted set of content items 510 is extracted, in such anembodiment a similarity detection algorithm may be run, with theextracted metadata and the saved description records of various templateapplications as input, to identify the template applications (if any)whose object metadata is most similar to the submitted metadata. One ormore similar applications found using the analysis (e.g., applicationswhose object metadata similarity scores with respect to the extractedmetadata exceed a threshold) may be selected as candidates whoserepresentations are provided to the client as candidates. In otherembodiments, instead of or in addition to such similarity analyses,machine learning models may be used to identify potential targetapplications 514.

An instance of a data set 550 corresponding to the data model, e.g.,similar to an initially-empty spreadsheet or an initially emptydatabase, may be created in the depicted embodiment. In someembodiments, the data set may be materialized as soon as the potentialtarget application 514 is identified, while in other embodiments thedata set may not be created until the client approves an applicationrepresentation presented by the AAGS. In the depicted embodiment,metadata 512 obtained from the initial example content items 510 (and/orportions of the submitted content itself) may be used to fill some ofthe empty slots or entries in the instance 550, as indicated by arrow572. Other entries of the data set may initially be populated withplaceholder or dummy values, as indicated by arrow 574 in variousembodiments. At least some of the placeholder values may be needed forthe application to work in some embodiments—that is, without a populatedconcrete instance of the data model 516, the application may notfunction properly in such embodiments. In some embodiments, the AAGS maycomprise one or more placeholder value selectors 570, which areresponsible for generating reasonable placeholder values which (a)enable the application to function properly and (b) are logicallycompatible with the entries of the data set which were populated usingthe supplied content items. For example, if the application deals withscheduling soccer games, and a placeholder value for the data set is toindicate a result of a soccer game to be e-mailed to some users, aplaceholder result value of “2-0” or “3-1” may be more appropriate thana basketball-like score of “75-52”. In at least some embodiments,machine learning algorithms may be used to generate one or moreplaceholder values.

In various embodiments, during the course of further interactions withthe client, as the application is being refined, some or all of theplaceholder values may gradually be replaced using additional data ordata sources indicated by the client (e.g., in response to queries fromthe AAGS). These changes may result in making the instantiated data set550 more and more representative of the real-world usage scenariosanticipated for the application in such embodiments. In someembodiments, during the process of application refinement, the clientmay indicate third-party data sources (such as various types ofpublicly-accessible databases or encyclopedia sections accessible overthe Internet) which can be used to populate various entries of the dataset.

Example Applications

FIG. 6 illustrates aspects of two simple applications which may begenerated based on respective sets of submitted example content items,data records which are recommended for label disambiguation, accordingto at least some embodiments. In the first example, a client interestedin developing a hair salon scheduling application may submit examplecontent items 610A, comprising a set of hairstyle photos 612, photos 614of people getting hair treatments in a hair salon, and a set of calendarentries 616 showing hair salon appointments. In response to thesubmitted content items 610A, the AAGS may for example use metadataextracted from the items to identify a template of an appointmentscheduling application, submit a visual representation of theapplication, get it approved by the client, generate a starter versionof the application and then gradually refine the application to tailorit to the hair salon context in the depicted embodiment. Eventually, atsome stage of the refinement, a version 650A of theautomatically-generated hair salon scheduling application may beobtained, comprising at least the five types of high-level userinteractions shown in FIG. 6: a stylist selection interaction 656, anappointment date and time selection interaction 652, a styling detailsselection interaction 654, an appointment confirmation interaction 656,and one or more reminder notifications(s) 658. Each of the individualhigh-level interactions may comprise one or more lower-levelinteractions in the depicted embodiment.

In some cases, very few example content items may have to be providedfor the AAGS to deduce the type of application which is to be generatedon behalf of the client. In the second example scenario shown in FIG. 6,a few email or calendar invitations for soccer matches (e.g., of a cityleague or students of one or more schools) may be submitted as examplecontent items 610B. In response, the AAGS may determine that anapplication for scheduling and coordinating soccer matches is to begenerated. The user interactions included in the application at somestage of refinement may comprise, for example, a team member contactinformation gathering interaction 662, a next match date and timeselection interaction 664, an invitation distribution interaction 666,and a team quorum verification with associated reminder notificationinteractions 668 in the depicted embodiment. It is noted that simplifiedversions of the example applications are shown in FIG. 6 to avoidclutter, and that in practice a given automatically generatedapplication may comprise a much larger set of interactions in variousembodiments.

Provider Network Environment

In some embodiments, software applications may be generatedautomatically using resources of a provider network. FIG. 7 illustratesan example provider network environment in which an automatedapplication generation service may be implemented, according to at leastsome embodiments. Networks set up by an entity such as a company or apublic sector organization to provide one or more network-accessibleservices (such as various types of cloud-based computing, storage oranalytics services) accessible via the Internet and/or other networks toa distributed set of clients may be termed provider networks in one ormore embodiments. A provider network may sometimes be referred to as a“public cloud” environment. The resources of a provider network, or evena given service of a provider network, may in some cases be distributedacross multiple data centers, which in turn may be distributed amongnumerous geographical regions (e.g., with each region corresponding toone or more cities, states or countries).

In the depicted embodiment, provider network 701 may comprise resourcesused to implement a plurality of services, including for example avirtual computing service 703, a database or storage service 723, amachine learning service 771, and an automated application generationservice 743. Components of a given service may utilize components ofother services in the depicted embodiment—e.g., for some machinelearning tasks, a component of the machine learning service 771 mayutilize virtual machines implemented at computing platforms such as705A-705D of the virtualized computing service, data sets forapplications generated at the AAGS 743 may be stored at database/storageservice 723, computing platforms of the VCS may be used as deploymentdestinations for applications generated at the AAGS, and so on. Inputdata, intermediate results, final results and/or other artifacts ofvarious machine learning algorithms or models, some of which may beemployed by the AAGS 743, may be stored at storage servers 725 (e.g.,725A-725D) of the database or storage service 723 in some embodiments.Individual ones of the services shown in FIG. 7 may implement arespective set of programmatic interfaces 777 which can be used byexternal and/or internal clients (where the internal clients maycomprise components of other services) in the depicted embodiment.

As shown, the AAGS 743 may comprise, among other components, one or moreapplication generation coordinators 745, interaction managers 747 and/ora set of application templates 749 in the depicted embodiment. Theapplication generation coordinators 745 may, for example, invokealgorithms selected from the machine learning algorithm library 775 toidentify candidate applications corresponding to example content itemssubmitted by clients, analyze various types of feedback provided byclients via programmatic interfaces 777 as applications are refined, andso on. The interaction managers 747 may (as indicated by their names)coordinate programmatic interactions with clients of the AAGS as well asother provider network services in the depicted embodiment. In someembodiments, as mentioned earlier, when an application based onsubmitted example content items is to be generated or identified by theAAGS on behalf of a client, metadata extracted from the submittedcontent items may be compared to metadata associated with content ofvarious template applications 749, and one or more of the templateapplications may be selected as initial versions of the desiredapplications. In some implementations, at least a portion of a libraryof template applications may be stored at a database/storage service723, and may be accessed from the database/storage service as needed atthe AAGS 743. In some embodiments, the machine learning service maysupport both batch jobs (handled by a batch job scheduler 779 whichallocates resources for the jobs and manages dependencies among jobs)and shorter real-time tasks. In at least one embodiment, the machinelearning service 771 may have access to or include a set of executionplatforms 776 that are optimized for machine learning tasks (e.g.,platforms that have customized hardware such as GPU arrays and/orcustomized software stacks). Depending on the suitability of suchplatforms for the machine learning tasks needed for automatedapplication generation, one or more execution platforms 776 may beemployed on behalf of the AAGS 743 in the depicted embodiment.

In at least some embodiments, at least some of the techniques discussedabove for generating applications without requiring source code to besupplied by clients may be accomplished using non-specialized computingplatforms of the virtualized computing service 703. As mentionedearlier, the techniques for automated generation of applications may beimplemented without acquiring resources of network-accessible servicessuch as those shown in FIG. 7 in at least some embodiments. For example,a standalone tool implemented at one or more computing devices which arenot part of a network-accessible service may be used in someembodiments.

Deployment and Access Options

FIG. 8 illustrates example deployment and access options forautomatically-generated applications, according to at least someembodiments. In various embodiments, one or more executable versions ofan automatically-generated application, tailored for respective types ofexecution platforms, may be produced at an AAGS at the request of aclient. In at least some embodiments, for any given applicationgenerated on behalf of a client, the client may determine (a) theclasses of devices (hardware and software combinations) on which theapplication is to be deployed (b) the particular devices on which theapplication is to be deployed and/or (c) access control rules for usersof the application after it is deployed (e.g., which users are to beallowed to use the application and under what conditions they may usethe application).

In the depicted embodiment, application deployment and access options810 may include the option of running the application on a single device812, such as the client's own smart phone, tablet computing device orlaptop, with access granted only to the owner/user of the device. Thislevel of access may be referred to as device owner or DO access. Option812 may be used, for example, if the client does not wish to share theapplication with anyone else—e.g., if the application was intended tosimplify some set of tasks that are of interest only to the client. Insome embodiments, the client may wish to deploy the application to agroup of devices 818, such as the devices of employees who work in aparticular department of an organization, or the devices of a set offriends, with DO access being granted.

In various embodiments, the application may be deployed at the client'srequest to a provider network service, such as the virtualized computingservice shown in FIG. 7, from which the application may for example beaccessed using a web service interface (e.g., via a variant of theHyperText Transfer Protocol such as HTTPS). Several access modes may besupported for applications when they are deployed to a provider networkservice in some embodiments. In option 814, access may be restricted toa specified group of entities or clients of the service, for example,while in option 816, public access may be permitted.

In one embodiment, a set of servers at premises owned by the client (orby an organization to which the client belongs) may be selected as adeployment destination, as indicated in option 822. In one suchembodiment, access control lists (ACLs) may be used to control access tothe application when it is run at such servers. Other access controlmechanisms may be used in other embodiments.

In one embodiment, as indicated in option 820, a version of anautomatically-generated application may be included in an onlineapplication marketplace, from which it may be downloaded and run atvarious devices such as smart phones, tablets, and the like. Theapplication may be downloaded without payment, or only after payment,depending on the objectives/wishes of the application owner (the clienton whose behalf the application was generated). In at least oneembodiment, a version of the application may be automatically deployedto a fleet 824 of Internet-of-things (IoT) devices, such as a fleet ofvoice-controlled assistant devices. Other deployment destination optionsmay be supported in at least some embodiments.

Methods for Generating Software Applications Starting with ExampleContent Items

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram illustrating aspects of operations that may beperformed to automatically generate software applications starting withthe analysis of submitted content items, according to at least someembodiments. As shown in element 901, a set of one or more examplecontent items associated with a desired or targeted application may bereceived from a client in the depicted embodiment, e.g., at anapplication builder tool or service. From the perspective of the client,the submitted content items may represent examples of the categories ofobjects or content on which operations of the desired application wouldbe performed—e.g., photographs of hair styles may be submitted tosuggest that the application should include operations for schedulinghair styling appointments, photographs of houses may be submitted tosuggest that the application is associated with real estate, and so on.

In various embodiments, metadata pertaining to the submission may beextracted from the example content items (element 904) and/or obtainedfrom other sources (e.g., databases, knowledge bases or encyclopedias).The metadata may, for example, include the content type (photo, video,calendar entry etc.) as well as various characteristics or properties ofthe content examples (e.g., dates, locations, recognized objects types,etc.) in different embodiments. In some embodiments, the service or toolmay utilize one or more programmatic interactions with the client toconfirm that an application which includes operations on contentcategories or object types indicated by the example items is in fact tobe generated.

One or more proposed initial versions of an application may be selectedor generated based at least partly on the content and associatedmetadata (element 907). In some embodiments, the extracted metadata maybe compared with respective metadata associated with a set of templateapplications maintained at the application generation tool/service, andthe application(s) whose metadata have high degrees of similarity withthe submitted content may be selected for further processing. In otherembodiments, one or more machine learning models or algorithms (e.g.,algorithms employing neural network-based models) may be used togenerate or select the proposed application. Each candidate applicationmay have an associated data model in the depicted embodiment, of which aconcrete populated instance may be required for the application tofunction as intended.

An instance of a data set corresponding to the data model of a proposedinitial version of the application may be initialized and populated. Ifpossible, the provided example content items or their metadata may beused to populate at least some entries in the data set (element 910) inthe depicted embodiment. Placeholder values may be used to fill outother entries (e.g., those entries for which values could not beobtained from the analysis of the submitted content) in someembodiments.

A representation (e.g., the equivalent of a sequence of screenshots)representing user interactions with the proposed initial version of theapplication may be transmitted to the client for approval in variousembodiments. In some embodiments, the representation may include atleast some non-visual elements (e.g., portions of audio may beincluded). Upon approval of the proposal, at least a portion of thesoftware program code of the initial version of the application (whichuses the populated data set) may be generated in some embodiments(element 916). It is noted that in some embodiments, there may be somescenarios in which no new code may have to be generated—e.g., apre-existing application from an application builder service library maybe sufficient for the client's needs; code may only have to be generatedof needed.

An indication of the initial version of the program may be provided tothe client in various embodiments (element 919). In some embodiments,the client may for example be permitted to try out or execute theinitial version of the application (e.g., with access granted to run anexecutable version). In other embodiments, depending for example on thepreferences of the client, access to the source code may also or insteadbe granted to the client.

Based on client feedback and input, additional operations associatedwith the application may be performed in various embodiments. Forexample, as needed, a sequence of one or more refined versions of theapplication program may be generated (element 922), based at leastpartly on additional content details provided by the client,notification configuration preferences indicated by the client for thetarget application, and so on. The process of iterative refinement basedon client feedback may be continued until eventually an approved versionof the application program is obtained in some embodiments. In somecases, clients may modify portions or all of the source code toimplement various improvements or functional enhancements of theapplication as it is refined. Clients interested in modifying thesoftware may not be required to take over modification responsibilitiesfor the entire application source in at least some embodiments: forexample, a client may make a minor change to one portion of the code,and then resume service-implemented refinement. Tools such as IDEs,source code repository management and the like may be provided by theapplication builder tool or service in various embodiments.

In at least some embodiments, indications of one or more deploymentdestination options for the automatically generated application maybeprovided to the client at some stage of the interactions with theapplication builder tool or service. In response to a client request, anapproved version of the application may be deployed to one or moreselected deployment destinations in the depicted embodiment (element925). In various embodiments, a fully functional scalable applicationmay be generated and deployed on behalf of a client, starting with theanalysis of content items submitted by the client, without requiringsource code to be provided by the client.

It is noted that in various embodiments, some of the operations shown inFIG. 9 may be implemented in a different order than that shown in thefigure, or may be performed in parallel rather than sequentially.Additionally, some of the operations shown in FIG. 9 may not be requiredin one or more implementations.

Use Cases

The techniques described above, of analyzing example content itemssubmitted by a client, such as photographs, emails, and the like, usingthe results of the analysis to generate software applications on behalfof the client without requiring source code from the client, and thendeploying the applications on any combination of desired applicationexecution platforms, may be useful in a variety of scenarios. Numeroussmall business owners who are not experts in software development mayfor example obtain customized applications from an application builderservice implementing the techniques. Individuals or groups who wish toorganize and manage charitable events, school events, neighborhoodevents, small-scale sports events and the like may be able to automatepart of their tasks using automatically generated applications. Evenorganizations or entities that possess programming expertise may benefitfrom the automated creation of applications, by using the applicationbuilder service or tool to implement some (e.g., less critical) parts ofan application, while focusing their resources to other parts of theapplication where the greatest return on their in-house programmingexpertise can be obtained.

Illustrative Computer System

In at least some embodiments, a server that implements a portion or allof one or more of the technologies described herein, including thetechniques for analyzing submitted content items, generating orselecting applications, refining applications, deploying applicationsand/or executing the deployed applications may include a general-purposecomputer system that includes or is configured to access one or morecomputer-accessible media. FIG. 10 illustrates such a general-purposecomputing device 9000. In the illustrated embodiment, computing device9000 includes one or more processors 9010 coupled to a system memory9020 (which may comprise both non-volatile and volatile memory modules)via an input/output (I/O) interface 9030. Computing device 9000 furtherincludes a network interface 9040 coupled to I/O interface 9030.

In various embodiments, computing device 9000 may be a uniprocessorsystem including one processor 9010, or a multiprocessor systemincluding several processors 9010 (e.g., two, four, eight, or anothersuitable number). Processors 9010 may be any suitable processors capableof executing instructions. For example, in various embodiments,processors 9010 may be general-purpose or embedded processorsimplementing any of a variety of instruction set architectures (ISAs),such as the x86, PowerPC, SPARC, or MIPS ISAs, or any other suitableISA. In multiprocessor systems, each of processors 9010 may commonly,but not necessarily, implement the same ISA. In some implementations,graphics processing units (GPUs) may be used instead of, or in additionto, conventional processors.

System memory 9020 may be configured to store instructions and dataaccessible by processor(s) 9010. In at least some embodiments, thesystem memory 9020 may comprise both volatile and non-volatile portions;in other embodiments, only volatile memory may be used. In variousembodiments, the volatile portion of system memory 9020 may beimplemented using any suitable memory technology, such as static randomaccess memory (SRAM), synchronous dynamic RAM or any other type ofmemory. For the non-volatile portion of system memory (which maycomprise one or more NVDIMMs, for example), in some embodimentsflash-based memory devices, including NAND-flash devices, may be used.In at least some embodiments, the non-volatile portion of the systemmemory may include a power source, such as a supercapacitor or otherpower storage device (e.g., a battery). In various embodiments,memristor based resistive random access memory (ReRAM),three-dimensional NAND technologies, Ferroelectric RAM, magnetoresistiveRAM (MRAM), or any of various types of phase change memory (PCM) may beused at least for the non-volatile portion of system memory. In theillustrated embodiment, program instructions and data implementing oneor more desired functions, such as those methods, techniques, and datadescribed above, are shown stored within system memory 9020 as code 9025and data 9026.

In one embodiment, I/O interface 9030 may be configured to coordinateI/O traffic between processor 9010, system memory 9020, and anyperipheral devices in the device, including network interface 9040 orother peripheral interfaces such as various types of persistent and/orvolatile storage devices. In some embodiments, I/O interface 9030 mayperform any necessary protocol, timing or other data transformations toconvert data signals from one component (e.g., system memory 9020) intoa format suitable for use by another component (e.g., processor 9010).In some embodiments, I/O interface 9030 may include support for devicesattached through various types of peripheral buses, such as a variant ofthe Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus standard or theUniversal Serial Bus (USB) standard, for example. In some embodiments,the function of I/O interface 9030 may be split into two or moreseparate components, such as a north bridge and a south bridge, forexample. Also, in some embodiments some or all of the functionality ofI/O interface 9030, such as an interface to system memory 9020, may beincorporated directly into processor 9010.

Network interface 9040 may be configured to allow data to be exchangedbetween computing device 9000 and other devices 9060 attached to anetwork or networks 9050, such as other computer systems or devices asillustrated in FIG. 1 through FIG. 9, for example. In variousembodiments, network interface 9040 may support communication via anysuitable wired or wireless general data networks, such as types ofEthernet network, for example. Additionally, network interface 9040 maysupport communication via telecommunications/telephony networks such asanalog voice networks or digital fiber communications networks, viastorage area networks such as Fibre Channel SANs, or via any othersuitable type of network and/or protocol.

In some embodiments, system memory 9020 may be one embodiment of acomputer-accessible medium configured to store program instructions anddata as described above for FIG. 1 through FIG. 9 for implementingembodiments of the corresponding methods and apparatus. However, inother embodiments, program instructions and/or data may be received,sent or stored upon different types of computer-accessible media.Generally speaking, a computer-accessible medium may includenon-transitory storage media or memory media such as magnetic or opticalmedia, e.g., disk or DVD/CD coupled to computing device 9000 via I/Ointerface 9030. A non-transitory computer-accessible storage medium mayalso include any volatile or non-volatile media such as RAM (e.g. SDRAM,DDR SDRAM, RDRAM, SRAM, etc.), ROM, etc., that may be included in someembodiments of computing device 9000 as system memory 9020 or anothertype of memory. Further, a computer-accessible medium may includetransmission media or signals such as electrical, electromagnetic, ordigital signals, conveyed via a communication medium such as a networkand/or a wireless link, such as may be implemented via network interface9040. Portions or all of multiple computing devices such as thatillustrated in FIG. 10 may be used to implement the describedfunctionality in various embodiments; for example, software componentsrunning on a variety of different devices and servers may collaborate toprovide the functionality. In some embodiments, portions of thedescribed functionality may be implemented using storage devices,network devices, or special-purpose computer systems, in addition to orinstead of being implemented using general-purpose computer systems. Theterm “computing device”, as used herein, refers to at least all thesetypes of devices, and is not limited to these types of devices.

CONCLUSION

Various embodiments may further include receiving, sending or storinginstructions and/or data implemented in accordance with the foregoingdescription upon a computer-accessible medium. Generally speaking, acomputer-accessible medium may include storage media or memory mediasuch as magnetic or optical media, e.g., disk or DVD/CD-ROM, volatile ornon-volatile media such as RAM (e.g. SDRAM, DDR, RDRAM, SRAM, etc.),ROM, etc., as well as transmission media or signals such as electrical,electromagnetic, or digital signals, conveyed via a communication mediumsuch as network and/or a wireless link.

The various methods as illustrated in the Figures and described hereinrepresent exemplary embodiments of methods. The methods may beimplemented in software, hardware, or a combination thereof. The orderof method may be changed, and various elements may be added, reordered,combined, omitted, modified, etc.

Various modifications and changes may be made as would be obvious to aperson skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure. It isintended to embrace all such modifications and changes and, accordingly,the above description to be regarded in an illustrative rather than arestrictive sense.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:analyzing, at an application generation service, one or more examplecontent items indicated by a client of the application generationservice, wherein the one or more example content items pertain to anapplication to be generated by the application generation service onbehalf of the client; requesting, by the application generation service,a confirmation from the client that an operation of the application isto be directed to a particular object type of one or more object typesdetected in the one or more example content items; obtaining, by theapplication generation service, the confirmation from the client thatthe operation of the application is to be directed to the particularobject type; and in response to obtaining the confirmation, providing,to the client by the application generation service, an indication of atleast one version of the application prepared at the applicationgeneration service, wherein the at least one version of the applicationis prepared by the application generation service without obtainingsource code of the application from the client.
 2. Thecomputer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:storing, at the application generation service, metadata of a pluralityof template applications; identifying, at the application generationservice from the plurality of template applications, a particulartemplate application based at least in part on an analysis of similarityof metadata of the particular template application with respect tometadata extracted from the one or more example content items; andutilizing, at the application generation service, the particulartemplate application to prepare at least a particular version of theapplication which is provided to the client.
 3. The computer-implementedmethod as recited in claim 1, further comprising: populating, by theapplication generation service, an entry of a data set of theapplication with a placeholder value; and identifying, by theapplication generation service, a replacement value for the entry basedat least in part on one or more interactions with the client.
 4. Thecomputer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:accessing a particular example content item of the one or more examplecontent items via a network by the application generation service,wherein said accessing comprises utilizing a pointer to a networklocation, and wherein the pointer is provided to the applicationgeneration service by the client.
 5. The computer-implemented method asrecited in claim 1, wherein the one or more example content itemscomprise one or more of: (a) a photograph, (b) a video, (c) an e-mail,(d) a contacts database entry, (e) an audio, (f) a presentation, (g) adocument, (h) a calendar entry or (i) a sketch.
 6. Thecomputer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:preparing, at the application generation service, a deployment packagecomprising an executable version of the application; and transmitting,from the application generation service, the deployment package to oneor more deployment destinations.
 7. The computer-implemented method asrecited in claim 1, further comprising: transmitting an executableversion of the application from the application generation service toone or more of: (a) a smart phone, (b) a network-accessible service of aprovider network, (c) a server indicated by the client, or (d) acollection of downloadable applications.
 8. A system, comprising: one ormore computing devices; wherein the one or more computing devicesinclude instructions that upon execution on or across the one or morecomputing devices cause the one or more computing devices to: analyze,at an application generation service, one or more example content itemsindicated by a client of the application generation service, wherein theone or more example content items pertain to an application to begenerated by the application generation service on behalf of the client;request, by the application generation service, a confirmation from theclient that an operation of the application is to be directed to aparticular object type of one or more object types detected in the oneor more example content items; obtain, by the application generationservice, the confirmation from the client that the operation of theapplication is to be directed to the particular object type; and inresponse to obtaining the confirmation, provide, to the client by theapplication generation service, an indication of at least one version ofthe application prepared at the application generation service, whereinthe at least one version of the application is prepared by theapplication generation service without obtaining source code of theapplication from the client.
 9. The system as recited in claim 8,wherein the one or more computing devices include instructions that uponexecution on or across the one or more computing devices cause the oneor more computing devices to: store, at the application generationservice, metadata of a plurality of template applications; identify, atthe application generation service from the plurality of templateapplications, a particular template application based at least in parton an analysis of similarity of metadata of the particular templateapplication with respect to metadata extracted from the one or moreexample content items; and utilize, at the application generationservice, the particular template application to prepare at least aparticular version of the application which is provided to the client.10. The system as recited in claim 8, wherein the one or more computingdevices include instructions that upon execution on or across the one ormore computing devices cause the one or more computing devices to:populate, by the application generation service, an entry of a data setof the application with a placeholder value; and identify, by theapplication generation service, a replacement value for the entry basedat least in part on one or more interactions with the client.
 11. Thesystem as recited in claim 8, wherein the one or more computing devicesinclude instructions that upon execution on or across the one or morecomputing devices cause the one or more computing devices to: access aparticular example content item of the one or more example content itemsvia a network by the application generation service using a pointer to anetwork location, wherein the pointer is provided to the applicationgeneration service by the client.
 12. The system as recited in claim 8,wherein the one or more example content items comprise one or more of:(a) a photograph, (b) a video, (c) an e-mail, (d) a contacts databaseentry, (e) an audio, (f) a presentation, (g) a document, (h) a calendarentry or (i) a sketch.
 13. The system as recited in claim 8, wherein theone or more computing devices include instructions that upon executionon or across the one or more computing devices cause the one or morecomputing devices to: prepare, at the application generation service, adeployment package comprising an executable version of the application;and transmit, from the application generation service, the deploymentpackage to one or more deployment destinations.
 14. The system asrecited in claim 8, wherein the one or more computing devices includeinstructions that upon execution on or across the one or more computingdevices cause the one or more computing devices to: transmitting anexecutable version of the application from the application generationservice to one or more of: (a) a smart phone, (b) a network-accessibleservice of a provider network, (c) a server indicated by the client, or(d) a collection of downloadable applications.
 15. One or morenon-transitory computer-accessible storage media storing programinstructions that when executed on or across one or more processorscause the one or more processors to: examine, at an applicationgeneration service, one or more example content items indicated by aclient of the application generation service, wherein the one or moreexample content items pertain to an application to be generated by theapplication generation service on behalf of the client; request, by theapplication generation service, a confirmation from the client that anoperation of the application is to be directed to a particular objecttype of one or more object types detected in the one or more examplecontent items; obtain, by the application generation service, theconfirmation from the client that the operation of the application is tobe directed to the particular object type; and in response to obtainingthe confirmation, provide, to the client by the application generationservice, an indication of at least one version of the applicationprepared at the application generation service, wherein the at least oneversion of the application is prepared by the application generationservice without obtaining source code of the application from theclient.
 16. The one or more non-transitory computer-accessible storagemedia as recited in claim 15, storing further program instructions thatwhen executed on or across one or more processors further cause the oneor more processors to: store, at the application generation service,metadata of a plurality of template applications; identify, at theapplication generation service from the plurality of templateapplications, a particular template application based at least in parton an analysis of similarity of metadata of the particular templateapplication with respect to metadata extracted from the one or moreexample content items; and utilize, at the application generationservice, the particular template application to prepare at least aparticular version of the application which is provided to the client.17. The one or more non-transitory computer-accessible storage media asrecited in claim 15, storing further program instructions that whenexecuted on or across one or more processors further cause the one ormore processors to: populate, by the application generation service, anentry of a data set of the application with a placeholder value; andidentify, by the application generation service, a replacement value forthe entry based at least in part on one or more interactions with theclient.
 18. The one or more non-transitory computer-accessible storagemedia as recited in claim 15, storing further program instructions thatwhen executed on or across one or more processors further cause the oneor more processors to: access a particular example content item of theone or more example content items via a network by the applicationgeneration service using a pointer to a network location, wherein thepointer is provided to the application generation service by the client.19. The one or more non-transitory computer-accessible storage media asrecited in claim 15, wherein the one or more example content itemscomprise one or more of: (a) a photograph, (b) a video, (c) an e-mail,(d) a contacts database entry, (e) an audio, (f) a presentation, (g) adocument, (h) a calendar entry or (i) a sketch.
 20. The one or morenon-transitory computer-accessible storage media as recited in claim 15,storing further program instructions that when executed on or across oneor more processors further cause the one or more processors to: transmitan executable version of the application from the application generationservice to one or more of: (a) a smart phone, (b) a network-accessibleservice of a provider network, (c) a server indicated by the client, or(d) a collection of downloadable applications.